Megan M. Allen is a National Board-certified teacher, the 2010 Florida Teacher of the Year, an eternal optimist, and an overall edugeek. Allen taught for nine years as a 4th and 5th grade teacher in Tampa, Fla., and now serves as the developer and director of the Master of Arts in Teacher Leadership at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. Follow her on Twitter: @redhdteacher.

Professional Creep: How Work Can Take Over Your Life (and Your Book List)

Thank you to my mentor, Sue Creekmore, for pointing this out in her wonderfully, sassy, and wise way.

The Teacher Leader Dementor Returns! Professional Creep

I have a confession.

I haven't read a book for pleasure in years.

Not that the books I read aren't fun or enjoyable, but they all connect to work. Teacher leadership, social science, brain research...fascinating, but all chosen to help me learn, stretch, and grow into a better professional educator. I love these reads, but I don't think they ever give my brain any time off from thinking about improving education. I don't know if I ever take a break from work, even when I'm reading.

I don't think I realized it until I started packing for our vacation a few days ago. I wanted books to read by the lakeside in North Carolina, so I picked up two books on grant writing for nonprofits. Express delivery, of course, so I could have them for the 15-hour drive down south. I planned on adding them to this stack:

Then I thought about how I used to feel about books. I couldn't put them down. I longed to be whisked away into worlds of vampires, to be drawn into places that were far away from my own reality. To lose myself in the pages of a book and become so enraptured that I couldn't bear to peel myself off the couch. To really escape from the pressures of work, so when I finally closed the covers of my book, my energy bucket was refilled.

Isn't it funny and wonderful that in education, you can get so obsessed with your work that it takes over all parts of your life? This "professional creep" can take away your nights out with friends, cause you to be late to dinner with your loved ones, and even trickle onto your reading lists, toppling over the pile of escapist reads and replacing them with education-related non-fiction.

So I posted a plea on Facebook, and so many beautiful reads appeared thanks to recommendations of colleagues far and wide. I'm almost done with my first one, and it's complete and utter mindlessness. It's pure delight.

Though I do love the education profession, I have realized that I must attend to all parts of my life. I hit pause on the education button and put the spotlight on Megan. I need to fan the flames of my personal life, including revisiting my love of those beautiful, escapist fictional reads that used to tower beside my bed.

My advice: Don't let "profession creep" take over your life in a way that's detrimental to your health. Tell it to creep on back over the line, and that you'll get to it when you can.

For right now, I'm cracking open a book. And unless the three main characters from Big Little Lies are talking about guided reading and leadership development of teachers from their drama-filled town of Monterey, Calif., it's a book for pure enjoyment only.

In case you are interested in the books that were recommended to me, here's what was recommended. Thanks to the friends and colleagues who helped me create this list!

Reads for educators who are too busy to read and need escapist reads to lure them back in to reading for leisure:

The Night Circus

The Perfect Stranger

Big Little Lies (my first read!)

The One-in-a-Million Boy

The Nightingale (this will be my second)

Americanah

The Light Between Oceans

Man of Legends

Stillhouse Lake

The Hundredth Queen

Demon Moon

Split Second

I am Number Four

Everything We Keep

I am the Messenger

Brown Girl Dreaming

Another Brooklyn

The Kitchen House

Yellow Crocus

Sarah's Key

The Art of Fielding

A Man Called Ove

The Goldfinch

Beautiful Ruins

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

Me Before You

The Nest

Congo

City of Thieves

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (tried to buy, not in paperback yet)

Eleanor and Park

The Hate You Give

All the Bright Places

I'll Give you the Sun

Orbiting Jupiter

Out of My Mind (one of my favs to use with kids)

Anything by Jodi Picoult

Trying to Float

Girl on the Train

All the Light We Cannot See (note, read this and NOT uplifting)

What Alice Forgot

The Rosie Project

Caleb's Crossing

Everything I Never Told You

The Color of Water

The Paris Wife

My Friend Dahmer

The Book Thief (LOVE this!)

The Janet Evanovich series

The God of Small Things (bought this—it's read #3!)

All-American Boys

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Loved A Monster Calls

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Underground Railroad

Anything by Kate Morton

Glass Castle

America's First Daughter

Wolf Hall

Tiny Beautiful Things (one of my favorites)

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